


raise a glass

by kwritten



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Los Angeles, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4979965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this isn't exactly where they expected to end up, and it wasn't home, but it was all they had so... might as well drink as if this is what they wanted from the beginning</p>
            </blockquote>





	raise a glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spuffy_luvr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffy_luvr/gifts).



_“I’m late!”_

_“For a very important date?” his houseguest quipped, one eyebrow raised and a smirk on his pale face._

_Dracula stopped on his way through the low-lit dining hall and peered at his friend incredulously, “I never understand the words that are coming out of your mouth. Do you do that on purpose?”_

_“All the better to woo you, my dear,” the younger man said, collapsing on the rug in front of the fire with a melodramatic flop._

_Dracula looked off into the distance with a glazed expression, “I hate you. I resent the day that you decided I was your friend.”_

_“You love me!” a cheerful voice came from the vicinity of the floor._

_The Count shrugged with a delicate air betraying the artistic soul beneath years of bloodshed, “Does that matter?”_

_He swept out of the room with a whirl of his cloak, the candlelight flickering in his wake. The entire castle attuned to its master’s mood._

 

Harmony looked up from the sheet of paper lying on the sticky bar and took a long drink of the whiskey-A+ the bartender had quietly topped up while she was reading, “Brian…” She pursed her lips and took another drink. “This _never_ happened.”

The vampire sitting next to her nodded his head emphatically, “It _did_! I was there!”

Harmony looked around the near-empty bar and sighed, “Brian. I know for a _fact_ that Spike hired you to find the Gem of Amarra like… two years ago. And you were human before that.”

He stared at her blankly. 

“Brian. I _ate_ you.”

“Who says?”

Harmony signaled to the bartender with a flick of her wrist, “Me. The person who ate you?”

She really needed to get some better friends. Or stop coming to these ridiculous meetings. Minions didn’t make the best drinking buddies. 

“Look just,” Brian picked up the sheet of paper and let his gaze travel over for a minute, his lips forming the shape of words as he (presumably) read over his favorite bits, “Just give me some actual critique and stop being…” he gestured wildly. 

Harmony narrowed her eyes, “You just gestured at all of me.” The bartender sat a fresh glass in her hand and she sighed, “Okay first thing, Spike would never use the word 'woo' ironically and secondly… what the hell does _artistic soul beneath years of bloodshed_ mean?”

Brian frowned and nodded his head seriously, Harmony took another drink of her whiskey. “Well, I was trying to express that …”

Someone plucked the paper out of Harmony’s hand, snorted, and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it to the bartender. 

“Hi Sheila,” Brian said sullenly. 

“Hey losers,” Sheila sat down next to Harmony and slung her arm around the blonde’s shoulders. “What’s new?”

“Brian’s writing about Dracula again,” Harmony said primly. 

Sheila snorted. 

“Hey!” Brian stood up, swaying a bit, “I took _your_ vampire reality show pitch seriously and _your_ ” he squinted at Sheila, “ah hell. Kill me! I watched that horrific short film about your daddy issues and gave GOOD concrit so… you know… you owe me!” His stern gaze shifted to slight embarrassment and his skin went a bit green. “Or something…”

After he ducked off to the bathroom, Harmony gave the bartender a stern look, “You’re supposed to cut him off, you promised.”

The young Sonsoo demon grinned sheepishly, “I may have accidentally slipped some flower-blood into his whiskey on … accident?”

“Flower-blood?” Sheila wrinkled her nose. 

“Blood of a human that was high on shrooms when they were drained,” Harmony sighed. “And you _know_ Brian is a lightweight.”

The demon smirked, “And more handsy on shrooms, too.” He winked at them and then tossed the rag in his hands into a dark corner before sauntering off in the direction of the bathroom. “Sheila’s in charge of the tap while I’m … _occupied_ ,” he called over his shoulder. 

Sheila hopped over the counter and helped herself to the scotch on the top shelf. “Is this where you thought you’d end up, Blondie?” she asked, her tone suddenly serious. 

Harmony tried to ignore the squelching sound of the demons playing kitten poker in the back booth, “I thought I’d be…”

“Married? Star of your own reality show? On the cover of tabloids?” Sheila was teasing, but only slightly. After all this time in LA together, drinking themselves into oblivion once a week, pretending not to completely understand where the other came from in an intrinsic way that made all their differences somehow negligible. 

“Something like that,” Harmony laughed hollowly. She accepted the tumbler of scotch from Sheila’s outstretched hand, “What about you?”

Sheila looked around the dank bar and shrugged, “I didn’t think I’d be editing some weirdo’s bizarre Dracula fanfic in my spare time.” She leaned against the bar, “A little surprised I’m not in prison, to be honest.”

“Couldn’t hold you now,” Harmony pointed out. 

Sheila smiled, her face going full-vamp for a split second, “They’d like to try.”

They sat and drank in silence for a while. 

There wasn’t much else to say or do, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> written for spuffy_luvr who wanted An LA meeting of the Sunnydale Survivors Support Group for Vampires; one or more vampires who actually survived in canon; beverages for the meeting; without it being complete crack!fic
> 
> hope you liked it!


End file.
